S&W 629 vs S&W 629-1

I'm looking into getting a 44 mag. I've found a 629 with no dash for $675 and a 629-1 for $500. The person selling the 629 is telling me that it is a better gun than the -1, so I was trying to decide which to buy. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thx!

The major differences are that to save costs with the 629-1 S&W dropped the pinned barrel and no longer recessed the cylinders, items that were standard on the 629. Many shooters believed this is a weakened design, and it was somewhat proven to be in silhouette competition. I don't believe there were a lot of this model made before S&W made improvements with the 629-2.
Short answer, yes, I believe the 629 is a better revolver to have than the 629-1 IMHO.

According to what I've seen and read from S&W the original 629 was both pinned and recessed, but the 629-1 was neither pinned nor recessed. Maybe you have an interim between the two?

As far as whether it's worth $175 more I guess that depends on how hard you will use it--probably the normal shooter (not a silhouette competitor) wouldn't see a difference. I've always liked recessed chambers, but that's just a personal prefernce and not grounded in anything otherwise--I do think the pinned barrel is an advantage though...

I'm going to check into this some more when I get home. I also like the recessed cylinder like on my S&W 19 and Blackhawk but I've never had a single issue with my 629 which is not recessed. I personally can't see spending $175 more for that.

__________________
If the pain is lacking so is the discipline...

"the only 911 call I need is chambering a round" - Mr. Muller, MO car dealer

Does S&W use the old "Bait & Switch" plan? They introduce a Model 29 ( for example) and it's reputation is established over a period of time because it has all the bells and whistles available, cutting edge technology as they say. Then, after a while, they start to cut costs of the very popular model by not recessing the cylinder or pinning the barrel and re-issue the model as a 29-1, then -2 and so on?
Is that how they work? It seems that way to me because most dash models don't carry the value of the no dash models.